Will specter of ‘President Trump’ filling court vacancy rouse voters?

Donald Trump emerges to give a victory speech after winning Nevada's Republican presidential caucus, at the Treasure Island Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Feb. 23, 2016. Trump won his third straight state, a week ahead of the critical Super Tuesday primaries. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

Photo: Ruth Fremson, New York Times

Republican leaders are not backing off their refusal to consider a Supreme Court nominee before a new president takes office — even with the increasing possibility that president’s name could be President Trump.

As Trump’s path to the nomination solidified with his overwhelming victory in the GOP Nevada caucuses Tuesday — something establishment Republican leaders had hoped to avoid — top Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, didn’t back off their insistence that they wouldn’t hold hearings or even meet a prospective nominee.

But even with the Republicans holding firm, it’s going to be a challenge for Democrats to transform their loathing of Trump’s offensive comments about Mexicans, women, Muslims and immigration into a rallying cry for their party’s base voters. The big problem: It’s traditionally been hard to rally voters around issues involving the Supreme Court. Even the specter of a President Trump choosing the court’s swing vote might not scare people into voting.

“It’s going to be very challenging to come up with a simple, compelling message of what’s at stake with the next Supreme Court nomination,” said Rose Kapolczynski, who in 1992 was the manager for then-Rep. Barbara Boxer’s first California Senate campaign, when the handling of Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the court was a key issue.

“People who care about immigration may not care about abortion, or they may not care about worker rights,” Kapolczynski said. “So you have to figure out, what is that issue that ties them all together?”

It was easier in 1991, when Thomas was confirmed by an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, despite allegations of sexual harassment from Anita Hill, a woman he once supervised. Boxer and many of her fellow female House members rallied around the message that the senators’ actions didn’t reflect America — and that resonated with female voters. Women began coming into Boxer’s headquarters saying they wanted to contribute $10 and jammed the phone lines asking to volunteer. Kapolczynski said she’s never seen such an effect since.

The good news for Democrats is that there is a record amount of knowledge about the politics around the vacancy left by Justice Antonin Scalia’s death this month. A Pew Research survey released Wednesday found that 94 percent of voters “expressed an opinion on whether the Senate should hold hearings and vote on Obama’s eventual nominee.” More than half (56 percent) said they wanted the Senate to hold hearings on whomever President Obama nominates and eventually vote on that person.

Organizers representing immigration rights, LGBT rights, abortion rights and labor will kick into high gear over the next week to rally their core supporters.

“The Republican obstructionism on the (court) vacancy is likely to be a huge issue for union voters and Democrats this fall,” said Steve Smith, a spokesman for the 1.1 million-member California Labor Federation. “With the ongoing assault on unions waged by deep-pocketed corporate interests through the courts, we’re going to see more engagement from workers in this election than we’ve seen in years, if not decades.”

On Wednesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue said, “We have got plans under way to help create grassroots engagement,” starting with a demonstration next week at the Supreme Court.

Still, it will be a challenge getting people who don’t pay attention to politics to care about this, “because there are so many issues that they consider more important,” said Mindy Romero, director of the California Civic Engagement Project at UC Davis and an expert in young and Latino voters.

But, Romero said, having all these activists talk about the importance of Obama’s filling the vacancy will have a trickle-down effect of sorts, “if average voters keep hearing about this over and over again from these people who come into contact with them.”

None of this outreach will be effective until Obama nominates someone to the court, Kapolczynski said. Then, she said, “This issue will have a face to it.”

Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, covering national and state politics. He has worked at The Chronicle since 2000 and in Bay Area journalism since 1992, when he left the Milwaukee Journal. He is the host of “It’s All Political,” The Chronicle’s political podcast. Catch it here: bit.ly/2LSAUjA

He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy — which he discussed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” after being told he couldn’t say the word “balls” on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!